


Christmas Breakfast

by Quillinky



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: Christmas, Gen, Phase Four (Gorillaz)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-19 01:10:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22002838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillinky/pseuds/Quillinky
Summary: They’d spent more Christmases apart than together. So when they did find themselves together for the holidays, Noodle liked to go that extra mile to make it a nice day for all of them. [Phase 4]
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Kudos: 41





	Christmas Breakfast

**Author's Note:**

> Do you like disgustingly wholesome Gorillaz stories set around Christmas time? Then you might like this one. Enjoy!
> 
> Normal warnings apply in regards to swearing, but not too much else.

Noodle was a vision of unadulterated joy as she bounded through the doorway, dancing on the tips of her toes as she bounced across the kitchen to help herself to orange juice from the fridge.

“Good morning!” She greeted Russel jovially.

Russel peered over the top of his phone, the touch of a smile on his lips.

“Morning,” he replied. “So… what’s the occasion for this good mood so early in the morning?” He inquired teasingly, playing the fool. 

Noodle rolled her eyes at him, and sipped juice from the carton, “You know exactly what day it is.”

“Stop taking juice from the carton! Other people gotta drink from that,” he reprimanded, not too seriously, still smiling. “Did I drag you up or what?”

“Sorry,” Noodle apologised, but smirked all the same.

She licked her lips, clearing the orange tang from her mouth as she opened up a couple of the cupboards closest to her, only to find them completely void of any cups or glasses.

She moved over to the sink, still full of dirty plates and cutlery from the day before and the day before that, and tentatively pulled out a glass that was awkwardly balanced underneath a grubby bowl, trying her best not to bring the mound of plates dumped on top come crashing down.

She ran the hot tap and rinsed it out, thoroughly. “It doesn’t help that there’s never anything clean in here, and this seems to be the only glass we‘ve got!”

“Two guesses where the rest of them are,” Russel ventured, giving her a knowing look. “I have told 2D to stop stockpiling them in his room, and that’s as much as I can do. He’s a grown-ass man, I ain’t picking up after him. And Murdoc can‘t be told, so I don’t bother,” he declared. “You can certainly have a stab at telling them yourself, they might actually listen to you.”

Noodle dried the glass with a tea towel. “I don’t really see myself having much luck with that. Besides,” She retrieved the carton of orange juice from the side and sat down next Russel at the kitchen table, pouring into her newly-clean glass, “I would literally rather go out and buy new glasses than drink out of any cups that have been sat in their rooms. Lord knows how many life forms they’re teeming with.” 

“Can’t disagree with that,” Russel grimaced slightly, clicking his phone shut and resting it face down onto the table. He turned his full attention to Noodle, “Merry Christmas, chick.”

“Merry Christmas to you too!” She beamed at him, pushing forwards to wrap her arms around him in a brief, but fierce, side hug, “Have you been awake for long? It‘s still fairly early.”

“About an hour or so,” he told her, laughing as she removed herself from him. “I tend to wake up early on Christmas day, ever since the first year you were with us and dragged me out of bed at the crack dawn for presents. It’s become a habit that’s just sort of stuck,” he said, eyes soft at the memory. 

“I’m no child anymore, Russel,” she gently reminded him. “You can go back to bed and get some more sleep, if you want to. Relax, and stuff. This might be the only respite we get before we launch the new album. I can wait.”

“I’m perfectly fine here,” Russel assured her.

He brought the mug of steaming hot coffee that was sitting in front of him on the table to her attention, “I’m on my second coffee already, I’m pretty much ready to face the day now. I knew you’d be awake by this time, and you can’t be up on your own Christmas morning.”

“I would have kept myself busy,” Noodle told him. “I could have arranged the presents I’ve bought into nice, orderly piles in the front room. I’d have put up some extra last-minute decorations around the place. Maybe even blare out some terribly cheesy Christmas music whilst I was doing it, that would really grind Murdoc’s gears,” Noodle tittered to herself, biting her lip at the devilishness of it. “If I turned the volume up loud enough, I think it‘d might be enough to force both of them out of bed.”`

Russel chuckled. “You’d be lucky if they emerge before noon,” he informed her. “It’d be a miracle if Murdoc even shows himself at all today.”

“I know,” Noodle acknowledged, all too aware and long-accepting of her band mates nocturnal proclivities and irregular sleeping patterns, as well as Murdoc’s immense disdain for seasonal festivities.

”But I’d like to think that one year they may surprise me, and we could celebrate the holidays together as a collective, rather than as separate people. I’d like to open presents with everyone awake and present, and for us to sit down and eat a proper meal together, to enjoy each other’s company, as much as we can anyway. For all my wishful thinking, it’s mostly proved futile so far.”

Noodle hadn’t meant for what she had said to sound despondent or aggrieved - on the contrary, she believed she’d gotten her point across quite tonelessly, with no obvious ill-feeling behind it - but the context was clear enough, and it stirred a sympathising look from Russel. 

“I do have something up my sleeve this year, though,” Noodle revealed, trying to lighten the tone of conversation, smiling broadly at him to ease the concern that was creasing his brow. “I thought that maybe the smell of cooked breakfast might tempt them out of bed. Not many can resist the lure of a good breakfast.”

The wrinkles in Russel’s forehead alleviated with the change of topic, and his face softened. “Now that sounds like you might be onto something there,” he considered, raising his coffee to take a drink.

“One drawback to that plan, however,” he alerted her. “We haven’t had a food shop since last week, and I don’t think we’ve got anything vaguely resembling what you’d have for a cooked breakfast in the house.”

“Wrong,” Noodle corrected him, smiling. “I went to the markets yesterday and battled through the throes of manic shoppers to pick up some last-minute food bits. There’s eggs and bacon in the fridge, and I also bought some fresh bread, which is in the cupboard. I was reduced to roundhouse kicking someone in the face in the chilled section just lay claim on the last packet of sausages.”

Russel laughed, abruptly and heartily.

“You’re way too good to them,” he finally told her.

“I’m good to you, too,” Noodle responded, and downed what was left of her juice. “You can have the honour of having first dibs on breakfast for being awake with me.” She pointed at the half-full contents of Russel‘s mug. “Another coffee?”

“Now you _are_ treating me,” Russel chuckled, swallowing up the rest of his coffee and passing it to her for a refill.

*

“Christ almighty,” Murdoc uttered with mild contempt, as Noodle materialised in the doorway carrying a number of beautifully decorated and colourfully gift-wrapped presents within her arms.

“Stop bein’ such a misery,” 2D burped, reclining back into his chair with his hands intertwined across his stomach, watching and thanking Russel for ridding him of his empty plate from the table. “She’s made a very nice breakfast, she’s bought presents for us, and all you can do is moan. I thought it was a lovely thing to do,” he said, grinning at Noodle, which earned him one back. 

“That’s what this breakfast was about, wasn’t it?” Murdoc asked accusingly, his eyes flicking between Russel, who stood with his back to him as he busily tidied away the morning’s dirty dishes, and Noodle, who had brushed past him to carefully lay the gifts onto the centre of the cleared table, endeavouring not to drop any in her attempt.

“This is entrapment. You entice me out into the open with a fry-up, then you dig your claws in and try and get me to join with these mortifying, degrading ‘festivities’. I see the game you‘re pulling.”

“God, you are such a scrooge,” 2D called him out.

“Yeah? And you’re a cretin,” Murdoc shot back. 

“Alright, quit it,” Russel ordered, wheeling around to face them to try and reign them in. “I thought you two might have grown out of bickering with each other after twenty years or so, yet here we are, more or less middle-aged now and still griping at each other.”

“Keep me out of this,” Noodle protested from behind the stack of presents, sitting herself down at the table. “ _I’m_ still young and sprightly.”

“Yes,” Murdoc grumbled, giving her a side glance. “We’re acutely aware of that, the amount of times you like to remind us of it.”

Noodle chose to ignore him, and began individually sorting through the gifts in front of her to check the name tag on each one, splitting them into three separate piles on the table.

“I know I never specified that I’d be out buying gifts for you all, but,” she paused, thinking back to the previous few years she had experienced before they had recently reunited for their current album - of her covert mission through the darkest alleys in order to hunt down an ancient demon, her time working the shores of the Japanese coast diving for pearls, and all of the significant incidents and memorable events that had come before that.

A slow, incredibly turbulent decade had passed between them since she had last shared a Christmas with her band mates, and a lot had changed without her. She, herself, had changed a great deal from when they had last come to know and care for her, as just a teenage girl, who was still young and naïve enough to assume that learning the truth of her existence and the secrets of her military past would be the most earth-shattering thing to ever happen to her.

“What I want to say,” she continued, “is that it’s been a long while since we’ve found ourselves together again, under the same roof, so I wanted to make a considered effort in making today a nice one. One to remember, maybe.”

She glanced in Russel’s direction who was stood in the far corner of the kitchen, who gave her a subtle wink, and she smiled lightly in response as he ambled over to the table to take the last remaining unoccupied seat at the table in-between Murdoc and 2D. Her line of sight drifted over to the former.

“Murdoc, there’s no mean trickery or false pretences involved to get you to do anything you don‘t want to do. I’m well aware you hate this time of year,” she stated. “Breakfast… was just breakfast. I wanted to make it, to get you up and about. At least stay for a little bit, even if it’s just to open some gifts.”

Murdoc’s face remained expressionless as he kept eye contact with her, giving no indication of the thoughts he had rolling around in his head, nor could she read from him what he intended to make of her request.

“Stick the kettle on, then,” he said, eventually. “I think I could probably manage another brew.”

It wasn’t a resounding, affirmative answer, but it was close enough.

She pushed one of the three piles of gifts she had earlier gathered together in front of him, a small bundle of neatly wrapped boxes in cloth of black and rich purple colour, each decoratively tied with silvery ribbon.

“Here, these are yours,” she said, the faintest smile at the corner of her lips, which soon twisted into a cheeky, roguish smile when she told him that she’d put the kettle on, but she had just cooked a whole breakfast for him; he could make his own damned tea. 

“Charming,” Murdoc gruffed, pulling the boxes towards himself. “I’ll have coffee then in that case, with a little dash of my own Christmas spirit.”

“It’s 10am,” Russel notified him, not entirely surprised by Murdoc’s alcoholic inclination to get the drink in early, as he graciously accepted the second bundle of gifts that Noodle had bestowed on him, swathed in bright green and yellow fabrics with delicately placed golden bows. 

“And? I guarantee you about half of nation has already started drinking today, the majority of them probably drunk right now. It’s a British custom, mate. I’m just catching up.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s actually true,” 2D piped up, offering Noodle a sunny, toothy grin as she passed him the final pile of gifts, made up of multiple little packages wrapped in varying shades of deep and pastel blues that matched the colour of his hair. “Every Christmas when I was a kid, I had an uncle that’s always shown up to dinner with a can of lager in hands, pissed as a fart. It became a sort of family tradition, watchin’ him drunkenly stumble through the day and passin’ out on the sofa before the Queen’s Speech even came on telly.”

“See? Tradition,” Murdoc confirmed.

Noodle halfway listened in as her band mates chattered away amongst themselves, occupying herself by filling up and switching on the kettle whilst they finished up opening and toying with their gifts. 

She leant back against the kitchen counter as she patiently waited for the kettle to boil, observing her band mates in turn. She thought the scene must have looked quite comical to an outsider looking in, of a young woman taking on the role of some strange kind of stand-in mother figure, fondly overseeing her overgrown children unwrapping the playthings she had bought for them. She stifled the urge to laugh out loud at the image.

She studied 2D as he lifted each of his remaining wrapped gifts in his hands, prodding and feeling out the shape of the contents underneath through the fabric to try and guess what it was, shaking them gently by his ear to see what sound it produced. He looked up at her, likely sensing that he was being watched.

“So, uh, why is everything wrapped in scarves, Noodle?” 2D asked quizzically, noting her gaze.

“It’s not a scarf, 2D. It’s just squares of fabric,” she answered kindly, above the whistling of the kettle. “It’s called Furoshiki, it’s the art of gift-wrapping in fabric, rather than with paper. It’s an old Japanese practice,” she added further. 

“Aw, cool,” 2D replied, inspecting one of the gifts at eye level. “I like the idea of that.”

Satisfied with this explanation, he promptly untied the white craft string that was wound around the length of the present, and tugged at the top knot to unwrap it, uncovering what was inside.

The click of the kettle signalled that the hot water was boiled and ready. She grabbed the milk from the fridge, and turned her back on them to arrange four off-colour, but clean, cups on the counter - she had found them hidden in a corner of one of the lesser-used cupboards, in her desperate search for a useable frying pan earlier that morning - and began spooning coffee granules into two of them, chucking a teabag into the other two.

As she was pouring red-hot water from the kettle into the cups, Murdoc sauntered up to the side of her, holding up a miniature, attractively-labelled bottle that contained a milky liqueur between his thumb and forefinger. He made sure Noodle saw it in his hand before breaking the seal with his teeth. “Are you trying to imply something with the size of the bottles of alcohol you’re gifting me with now?”

Noodle raised an eyebrow. “The sheer amount you consume is not good for you, _that_ I have always told you. But I wasn’t trying to convey anything,” she defended. “Anyway, I thought you liked Irish cream.”

“I do, and this is top-bollocks stuff, I‘ll admit. Higher percentage than your average Irish, smooth taste too. But it’s hardly going to last me long, is it?” He told her, draining the entire contents of the miniature into one of the cups of coffee to emphasize his point. He plucked the teaspoon from Noodle’s hand, and stirred in the mixture. 

“Well, if I’m being honest, I didn’t want to waste big money on things that’d just end up getting knocked down your throat without a second thought,” Noodle reacted, a little more reproachfully than she had intended, seizing back the teaspoon. “If you want the full-size bottle, I’m afraid that’s one you’ll have to go and buy yourself.”

Murdoc grunted in response and brought the cup up to his lips, cooling the coffee by blowing at it. He repeated this action a few more times before deciding that it must be at a suitable drinking temperature by now, and took a substantial gulp of the boozy coffee.

“Oho, beautiful,” he commented, smacking his lips, savouring the strong, sickly sweet tinge of whiskey on his tongue mingled with the bitterness of the coffee. 

He pushed the cup towards Noodle, offering her a taste. 

“No, thank you,” she rejected, as she added drops of milk to the cups of tea and coffee in front of her, giving them a quick stir. “It looks… far too heavy and sickly for my liking. And loaded with calories.”

“Have you ever tried it?”

Noodle peered at the pale coffee in Murdoc’s hand, the liqueur swirling inwards towards the centre of the cup.

“Alcohol isn’t really my thing,” she declared, yet accepted the drink from him all the same.

What the hell, she quietly thought to herself. It was Christmas.

She took a sip.

It wasn’t as overridingly sweet as she thought it would be judging from the appearance of the creamy liqueur alone, but it was the strength of the alcohol that momentarily caught her off guard; not quite expecting it to be quite so heady and overpowering when it came from such a tiny bottle. She swallowed it back, scrunching her nose up as it burnt all the way down to her belly.

“Wow, that‘s-” Noodle managed to get out, a little huskily, before a burst of coughs emanated from the back of her throat, cutting her sentence short, “strong.”

Murdoc laughed. “That’s generally what high alcohol percentage means, petal.”

“Yes, I know that. I just wasn’t expecting it be so potent, from the size of it,” she retaliated, cringing as she passed the cup back to him.

The aftertaste still lingered on the inside of her mouth, clinging to her tongue. “I need a cigarette now, just to get rid of the awful taste in my mouth.”

“Yeah, well, you can stop looking at me for that,” Murdoc remarked, smirking. He necked the remainder of his coffee, and pushed the cup to one side on the counter. “You’ve pilfered so many off of me I’m starting to wonder if you’ve ever actually paid for a single pack of fags in your life. It’s a pricey habit these days, I’ll have you know.”

Noodle scowled at him, with his refusal to produce a cigarette for her.

“Get them off Dents instead,” Murdoc suggested. “I don’t think you’d even need to bloody ask, he wouldn’t notice if a few went missing from his stash.”

She gave him a somewhat disapproving look, one she had come to perfect whenever Murdoc spoke uncharitably in the context of 2D’s intelligence, and turned on her heel towards the kitchen table with Russel’s and 2D’s hot drinks in hand.

“Right,” Murdoc announced loudly, gaining attention from the room, as Noodle ventured back over to the counter once more to retrieve her own hot drink. “It’s been… an odd sort of morning, really, sharing quality time with you bozos. Breakfast was good, though,” He conceded. “But now I have other acts of revelry to engage in. The pub opened about an hour ago, and there’s bound to be a free pint behind the bar with my name it.”

“The only thing at a pub with your name on it is a photo of you sayin’ banned above it,” 2D murmured in a low voice, but unfortunately not completely out of earshot from who the dig was directed towards.

Murdoc walked calmly and casually over to stand behind his chair, pinching the tip of his ear. “Pardon?” he asked, twisting. 

“Ow, _ow_ , get _off_!” 2D whined, swatting at Murdoc’s hand, to try and stop him applying anymore unwanted pressure to his ear.

“Good lad,” Murdoc said, releasing his grip, his hand travelling down to pat him on the shoulder instead. “If you’re lucky and they’re giving them away, I’ll bring you back a nice bag of peanuts.”

And with that, he left the room.

“Dick,” 2D mumbled under his breath, once he was sure that Murdoc was far enough away from the vicinity to not harass him any further. He tenderly rubbed at his ear. 

Noodle wandered back over to the table to join Russel and 2D, bringing a chair around with her free hand to situate herself between them both. 

She sat, and sipped contently at her tea with cupped hands, feeling quite pleased with how the morning had played out, anticipating how the rest of her day was going to pan out, and then somehow found herself focusing on one particular stream of thought.

As tremendously cliché, horribly corny and cringe worthy as she knew it sounded, she began to wonder about what the real essence of Christmas was all about, and what that meant to her, and she started to regard her band mates a little more closely.

Of Russel, who had leant an ear to her that morning when she wanted to talk things through, to share her concerns and ideas. He was her rock, always had been.

Then of Murdoc, who continued to mask and suppress any emotions he considered too life-affirming or delicate to avoid appearing in some way weak, and of 2D, who even now would happily ask her questions on things he did not understand because he knew that she would educate, rather than belittle for not knowing, and the taut underlying tension that still ran between both men. The fights, nitpicking and squabbles they still provoked and endured, and that was only what she had witnessed at breakfast.

They had matured in some respects she supposed, as they would and should do when a decade passes, whether it was through their mannerisms, interests, or even in certain aspects of their personalities. But it seemed like the very core of who they were as individuals remained the same, and perhaps that would never change, regardless of distance away, time apart or difficulties faced.

Russel would stay her rock. 2D would remain the yin to her yang. And Murdoc... for all his faults, would still be Murdoc. And that was strangely reassuring.

Christmases had been, and could be, spent alone; that was of no bother to her. But it was much more enjoyable spending it with the family she knew best.

She looked up from her tea, and cast her now undivided attention to Russel and 2D.

“So, shall we play charades?” She posed smiling.

*

Noodle roused ever so slightly from an exceptional nap, bushed from an afternoon of gorging on too many chocolates and winning too many games, swapping stories, anecdotes, and happy memories, with her face pressed right up against a bony shoulder, warm and vaguely comforting against her cheek. The smell of softly fragrant washing up powder hung close to her nose, and she soon recognised that it was 2D she was leaning up against. 

A small bundle of fur stirred from beneath her fingers, radiating heat and purring lazily from the crook of her lap. Without opening her eyes, she gave Katsu a soft scratch behind the ear and whispered sweet nothings to her in her native tongue.

She lay there for some time, eyes still shut, a little squashed from being tucked in between 2D and her cat, but not unbearably so that she felt compelled to get up and remove herself from them. She also did not want to risk breaking the cosy, secure mood that filled her at that present moment.

If she moved, that would alarm Katsu, who would then jump from her lap to 2D’s, who then himself would wake, and that was not ideal at all, in her opinion. The sacrifice of movement on her half, she concluded, was one she was willing to make to keep the peace.

Wishing to lull herself back to sleep, she focused on 2D’s shoulder rhythmically moving up and down in sync with every steady breath he took, but the occasional and unpredictable snore he emitted jarred her enough to draw her back from the cusp of blissful unconsciousness, denying her any notion of the sort.

Defeated, she yawned and opened her eyes, blinking to adjust her vision to the bright light that enveloped the room, and was pleasantly greeted by the sight of a sealed packet of cigarettes and a bag of peanuts, laid haphazardly in front of her on the living room table.


End file.
